Henry III Fine Rolls: Blog

Posts Tagged ‘Sherborne Castle’

Jeremy Ashbee, Head Properties Curator of English Heritage, has been in touch about the inventory of Corfe and Sherborne castles which formed the subject of Huw Ridgeway’s fine of the month for December 2010. Jeremy had previously thought that the term ‘la gloriette’ at Corfe, as attached to King John’s splendid new building, was introduced by Edward I. ‘The fine roll’, he writes, ‘changes all that’ for the name appears there ‘which is phenomenal to see’ and ‘immensely exciting’. Jeremy’s fine of the month about all this will appear shortly

It is not surprising that Henry III sent for Elias Rabayn (see ‘Elyas de Rabayne’ in Henry III Fine Rolls Blog, Sunday 24 April to Saturday 30 April 1261). Like all his fellow aliens, Rabayn, whilst much criticised by the English and their chroniclers, maintained a scrupulous loyalty to the King. It is ironic that the only alien who betrayed him was the one to whom he had been most generous, Simon de Montfort.

The thirteenth century saw several waves of aliens coming to serve the English kings. They came from Normandy, Touraine, Poitou, Savoy and even Germany. The last wave, who arrived before the reform period, was that of the Poitevins. They came to England in 1247, when the Lusignans arrived to be welcomed by their generous half-brother, Henry III. Rabayn, probably from the Isle of Oléron, was first noted in English records in 1247. He married an heiress and was Sheriff of Somerset and Dorset in 1251 as well as Constable of Corfe and Sherborne. Corfe was a vital castle which had once been the home of King John’s treasure and was still used for the imprisonment of important captives. Rabayn retained Corfe when he was replaced as sheriff in 1255. It was a gift of 500 marks’ worth of land to Rabayn that infuriated Matthew Paris in 1252. He wrote that, whilst the King had refused to allow his own subjects to pay their debts in installments, he had nevertheless rewarded the Poitevin.

When the storm broke around the King’s head in 1258, the Barons in their Petition of that May asked that all royal castles including those adjoining harbours from which ships sailed, should be committed to the custody of men born in England and that no women should be disparaged by being married to ‘men who are not true-born Englishmen’. As a result of the Provisions of Oxford of June/July, the Norman, John de Plessis, far from being removed, was appointed to the group of four who would chose the King’s Council, by a vote of the Barons. In addition he was to hold Devizes castle. Mathias Bezill was retained as Constable of Gloucester but Imbert Pugeys was removed from the Tower of London. Rabayn lost the custody of Corfe castle. The main casualties of 1258 were the Poitevins. Their leaders, the Lusignans, who were perceived to have resisted the reformers, were driven out of England. Their fall impacted on their associates; Rabayn also left England and his lands were taken into the King’s hands.

1261 saw Henry III overthrowing the Provisions of Oxford and recovering his royal power. He replaced sheriffs with those he could trust. With the recovery of royal power, some of the Poitevins returned; on 14 April, Rabayn was granted permission to return to England and was told to come at all speed. Nine days later, he was remitted of the King’s rancour and his lands, which had been taken into the King’s hands on that account, were to be restored to him.

Serious concerns about disturbances in Wales and the March marked the beginning of 1263 and the King planned to go there with Rabayn as one of his party. During June a petition of the Barons was produced which sought the restitution of the Provisions of Oxford but with a new demand that ‘aliens should depart from the kingdom never further to return, save those whose stay the faithful men of the realm might with unanimous assent accept’. By July the King had agreed to the baronial demand and, following his consent to the Statute against the Aliens, the Lord Edward was forced to cede Windsor castle to the barons. The alien knights had moved there when they were removed from London. These knights were then escorted to the Channel coast and, according to one chronicler, ‘they returned to their native land’ and to another, they were allowed to ‘freely depart with their horses and arms after first swearing not to come back again without being sent for by the community‘. Was Rabayn among them? But by November the Windsor castle was back in royal hands.

As part of their submission to the arbitration of Louis IX of France, the Barons returned to the attack on the aliens, albeit linked to courtiers in general. When, in January 1264, Louis announced his judgement at Amiens, one knight with Henry III in France was Rabayn. But perhaps he sensed that trouble was coming as, in February, he obtained a licence to crenellate his manor at Upway, near Lyme Regis in Dorset.

It is not certain whether Rabayn was at the Battles of Lewes or Evesham but he held rebel’s lands as early as October 1265. Rabayn has been said to have joined the Lord Edward’s crusade but his presence as a royal charter witness during this period shows that he did not go. However, he was Constable of Corfe again from 1272 until 1280 and for a short while he regained Sherborne castle. When he died in 1285, some of his lands went to the alien Bezill family as his daughter married Mathias’s Bezill’s son, John.